Mockbusters. Keep your eyes open.

Was in HMV earlier looking at some DVDs. An elderly woman next to me picked up a DVD and tucked it under her arm and continued browsing.

I couldn't help but point out her mistake.


When I explained that the DVD she had picked up wasn't 'Battle: Los Angeles' but was actually the Mockbuster title 'Battle Of Los Angeles', she was quite thankful as it was a present for her grandson...


... but I can't help but wonder how many people have been caught out by the Mockbuster market.

Ok most of you guys on here know what you're doing but thought I'd throw this out there, let everyone know.

Keep an eye on what you buy.

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Yeah, good call. I haven't made this error, but it's pretty low that people do this. It happens a lot. The trick is pretty simple: if, say, a new Hulk movie comes out, you re-release some old Hulk TV show or cartoon or something, but you redesign the cover to look new and sleek, and you keep any actual stills of the program/movie/whatever off the box art. Anything that would give it away as an older incarnation, rather than the new one. I expect they make lots of money off of careless or confused grandparents who are told that, for someone's birthday or Christmas or whatever, they just want the new Hulk movie.

It's clever, I'll give them that. But pretty sneakily low, too. Buyer beware and all that.

one time a woman on Ebay gave me negative feedback because she bought Three Colours Trilogy in region 2 without knowing or bothering to check what region DVD player she had.

not really the same thing, because i just wanted to get rid of it, not make money off it.

sorry, irrelevant posting.

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letterboxd

It's the copied movies that get me.
Battle Of Los Angeles being a copy of Battle: Los Angeles being the worst one for catching people out as the name is so close.

I've even seen a DVD called Transmorphers and it was released on DVD at the same time as Transformers.
Another one was Alien Vs Hunter when AvP came out.

Yoda, you said about the Hulk movies.
The kind of thing these rip-off merchants do would make a cheap copy called 'The Green Bulk' (or whatever) then market it in a similar box to the original Incredible Hulk film.

It's awful that there are studios that can do this and catch unwitting people out. Think how many kids' birthdays etc have been ruined.

I think HMV and other DVD shops should also be had up for stocking the stuff amongst the proper films too.
There should be a seperate Mockbuster section in the shop.

Ah yes, we're talking about slightly different things, then; totally knockoffs rather than repackaging old stuff. Same principle, though, in that I think both survive in the marketplace almost entirely because they can fool people who are buying for others and don't know the difference.

Lame either way, to be sure.

Trivia time!

The company that makes all those films is the same. They are called The Asylum. You can find a list of their films here. They've made such artful films as Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes, Almighty Thor, Titanic II, the aforementioned Battle of Los Angeles, Paranormal Entity, The Land That Time Forgot, Transmorphers, The Terminators, The Day the Earth Stopped, Death Racers, Snakes on a Train and War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave.

They're pretty despicable in general, but it seems there's a market for their works, mostly broadcasting on Sy-Fy late at night.

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THE ASLYLUM!!! thier films are AWFUL!! just look at the trailer for transmorphers or Thor Almighty! they do this all the time, they make worse films than Uwe Boll does.

Yeah, but they gave us Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Sharktopus, so I'm willing to give them a pass.

+ rep for saving someone some money, though.

And you wouldn't watch The Prestige or The Illusionist because they looked terrible?

Is Mockbuster a real term for these movies?

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It is now.

Look on Google, the first result that pings up is Wikipedia.

They both looked (and still do) rather dull and uninteresting to me, with neither helped by the casts and subject matter. This, on the other hand,



will get me in front of a tv each and every time.

Obviously I'm not thinking, or telling anyone, that this is better acted, directed, etc than either The Prestige or The Illusionist. Believe me, with all the films like this that I love, I'm not kidding myself that I'm watching quality cinema. But if I cared about quality, I wouldn't be watching this in the first place, let alone loving it. This isn't even a "B" movie, an it's imitation "B" movie.

I knew what I'm about to say the second I saw Pump Up the volume in your top 100, HK, so here it is:

You have some of the absolute worst taste in film I've ever seen. It wouldn't bother me except you're so flippant about things that others do enjoy that it gets under my skin.

And, for the record, there's nothing even remotely interesting about a CGI shark attacking an airplane.

I don't know what is worse, the fact that retailers actually do this or that there are people stupid enough to buy them.

Was up HMV earlier, saw a few more Mockbusters that I haven't spotted before.

Almighty Thor
American Battleship (Mock of: Battleship)
What's Up: Balloon To The Rescue (Mock of: Up)

Plus there was a massive section based on Transformers. There were too many to count or remember but the one that stuck in my mind was:
Metalshifter (aka: Iron Invader)

I spotted three others:
2012 Ice Age
2012 Doomsday
2012 Supernova
Armageddon 2012


I also noticed that a lot of these new ones I've never seen before aren't made by The Asylum either.

Some of those aired on the SyFy channel. I don't know if they were produced by SyFy, but I know that the 2012 movies aired on SyFy.

When I worked at Blockbuster I would see these everywhere and make an effort to tell the person renting the film that it is NOT what they are expecting. The one that really got people was Battle of Los Angeles.

I do remember one time that I told the person that it wasn't the one recently in theatres and he said that he knew, and still wanted to rent it!!!!

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Anyone Dumb enough to buy/rent the Mockbusters while the "Real" film is currently #1 at the box-office, and feigns shock and disbelief that they got hoodwinked...

well thats what makes them dummies i figure.

What Yoda is talking about is outright deceitful.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

It's like the old lady I spotted, the one I mentioned in my original post.
She wasn't to know, she's obviously someone who isn't massive on films and was buying a prezzie for her Grandson.

I've mentioned to HMV about putting the Mocks into their own section, like they do with kids films, horrors and westerns.

The staff just look at me with a blank expression.

I think it's dishonest. Ok, some people are just plebs and deserve to get ripped off for being plebs, but like the old lady I spoke to, most just don't realise until it's too late.

Really grinds my gears...